Balboa Spa Troubleshooting - OHH, SNS, GFCI tripping - SOLVED

Описание: I recently went through a multi-month process of troubleshooting my Balboa (control panel) jacuzzi, so hopefully some of my insights can help you if you're facing similar problems.

Control Box/Chip: Balboa 55257 & MX504SZ
Control Board: 22972_E

Initial Problems: The first indication of a problem was an OHH message (overheat) happening intermittently. This occurs when the board senses that the temp is above 110F, which could mean that the heater relay is stuck on, the pump is failing to turn on when heating, or there is a water flow problem inside the heater tube.

Eventually this progressed into the GFCI breaker tripping when the heat came on. OK, so the problem is likely on the heater circuit.....let's go inspect the board.

The heater relays on the board look a bit melted, and the wire jumper between them was toasted....looks like we're edging toward a solution. Quick search shows these relays are readily available, and if you know how to de-solder, it might be an easy fix.

I put new relays on the board, but as you can see in the video, whatever short/overheat that happened melted the PCB, and I think it messed up the traces, because with the new relays, the GFCI tripped immediately. Oh well, it was worth a small purchase risk to avoid a new board.

$450 CAD later I have a new control board. Make sure to take pictures of the old one and transfer the jumper wires exactly as they are.

Now here's the complicated and unlikely part.......I put everything back together, fired up the spa.....and after about 3 minutes of the heat being on, the GFCI trips!

Time to start troubleshooting from scratch.

I've had a heater element go bad on me before, so its not out of the question. Test resistance of the element (11 ohms)....well within tolerance. Check for continuity shorts to ground between the element pins and case.....nothing there.

Time to start unplugging things and seeing if I get any GFCI trips. For this testing, I removed the heater connections from the board to the tube. If it's not mentioned, the heater is disconnected for the tests.

Pump 2 only: OK
Pump 1 only: OK
Pump 1 & 2: tripped GFCI after an hour
Pump 1 & heater: tripped GFCI after a few minutes
Pump 1 & different spare heater: tripped GFCI after a few minutes

So now I'm thinking there may be a problem with Pump 1, because it tripped with Pumps 1 & 2 running, but after a while. Maybe the windings heated up, expanded, and touched the case? Not sure at this point.

Replace Pump 1 with a used pump ($75 from marketplace). I had to do some plumbing in there anyways so it wasn't the end of the world.

Re-run above tests with Pump 1: GFCI trips in same manner. Now I'm angry.

After a few days of denial about the GFCI possibly being bad, I open up the subpanel and inspect it. As shown in the video, it looks like there is a spiderweb in the contacts. Cleaned that out, but it still trips after a while.

Brain starts working again - the GFCI seems to be tripping only under a higher load (maybe 8+ amps, like with 2 motors, or a motor and the heater)

The Siemens 40A+ GFCI's are horrendously expensive, but marketplace comes through again with a used one for $90. We're still under the financial threshold of a spa company service call, so let's try a new GFCI.

SUCCESS WITH THE NEW GFCI !!!!!!!

I'm not overly upset with the result, because I followed the right sequence of troubleshooting steps and replacing the cheap components first.

Spa runs great for a few days, and then goes back to OHH errors, and a new one I hadn't seen (SnS). SnS is "sensors not in sync". Which means the temperature sensors are too far apart in readings and the computer can't handle that.

There are DIP switches on the control board, so set the 1st one to TEST mode, then hit Light and then Temp, which will scroll what the sensors are showing (your model might be a little different). Sensor A was reading maybe 2 degrees lower than B. Check the water temperature with my cooking thermometer, and B is indeed the correct temp.

Replace the M7 sensor A, which solves the SnS error!

Hope this helps!